Facing graduation at the end of 2014 and a resume light on practical, professional experience, Zack Steck was worried.
"I knew I had to put something on there," Steck, 24, of Bow and a Business Major at UNH Manchester says. "Around the same time I was taking the Business Senior Seminar class. They talked to us about internships and then helped us find the ones that would be a good fit."
Steck was able to snag an internship with Advance Technology, an electronic systems integration company. More than just a title he can put on his resume, Steck has hands-on learning with projects in nearly every aspect of the business from the finance department to accounts payable to sales. He also formed valuable mentorships with the company's director of finance and UNH Manchester alum Kristina Johnson who oversaw the internship program. All of which he says will prove invaluable to him once he graduates.
And it all started with the Business Senior Seminar.
"It actually turned out to be one of my favorite classes I've ever had," Stack says. "Everyone was so supportive, but they also really challenge you. They want you to be really prepared for the workplace when you leave here."
Steck says as part of the seminar, students were taught seemingly small details like how to dress for interviews and then given a chance to run mock interviews with UNH Manchester Business Alumni. William Troy, Program and Internship Coordinator for Business, says he purposely tells his alums to ask questions that are harder than what his soon to be graduates will actually face in the business world.
"And they do it," he says of his alumni. "They take it really seriously because they understand the value of it."
In addition to professional skills, Troy is also teaching his students life skills. Students in the Seminar are required to make budgets based on salaries of the jobs they are hoping to get in both New Hampshire and another state. From there, they then have to figure out taxes, school debt, housing costs, insurance and daily expenses to see if that salary, career choice and place to live is feasible.
Students in the seminar class are also required to go to job fairs and at least one networking event, usually with the Manchester Young Professionals, in order to learn how to network.
"You don't realize that you have to know how to do that and how important it is until you do it," Steck says.
The internship is also mandatory portion of the course that Troy says is critical to a student's success after he or she leaves UNH Manchester. The reason for that, he says, is in addition to getting an inside view of a potential career path and actual real world experience in the job they'd like to do, the internship teaches students to think and act professionally, Troy says. It also can mean a foot in the door at a local company for the student after he or she graduates.
Advance Technology President Rob Simopolous says he in fact has hired at least one former intern following their time in the program. He also says that students aren't the only ones benefitting from the experience.
"Our biggest challenge is recruiting highly skilled workers," says Simopolous. "The internship is a way to get really talented individuals to come in. And it allows us to groom them in the way we run our business. So that if there is a position at the end of the internship for them, they aren't coming to us with bad habits."
Steck actually ended up taking away even more than that from the experience, he says. When he first came to the internship, he was certain he wanted to pursue finance. But after doing the job and after the company's director of finance started having regular conversations with him about his future and career, Steck realized he didn't want to do finance at all. He wanted to be a financial planner. "But I didn't know I wanted to do that until I started talking to the director of finance," Steck says. "Being able to sit and talk with him and talk it through like that, was really helpful."
Steck says the experience not only contributed to his learning but to his career and professional portfolio.
"It's hands on experience," Steck says. "And that’s really important. It's important to see how things happen in real time and to experience working on a team."
Simply put, the internship sets him apart from the competition by giving him real world experience he can bring with him to his post college career.
Johnson, who also took the Business Senior Seminar, says it's great to be helping out a student from her alma mater reach his career goals. "I can definitely sympathize with what he's going through," she says. "And I think Advance Technology is providing a meaningful experience for him. And even though he doesn't want to follow the path of small company finance, he's still learning a really valuable lesson about finance and about life. It will be a good experience no matter what."
